Stray
by skywalkersamidala
Summary: Anakin had always had a penchant for taking in strays. (Modern AU feat. Dog R2D2)


Anakin had always had a penchant for taking in strays—that was how they'd ended up with Ahsoka and the triplets Rex, Fives, and Cody living in their house for a year when they had no place to stay after graduating college. Padmé couldn't really complain about that; they had been excellent house guests, all things considered, and had always been more than willing to lend a hand around the house to repay her and Anakin's hospitality. She could hardly count the number of times she'd woken up to find that the broken toilet had mysteriously repaired itself overnight, or that the dishes had been washed and put away neatly, or that the entire house had been tidied from top to bottom. Still, returning from her honeymoon to a houseful of loud and congratulatory twenty-two-year-olds when all she wanted to do was drag her new husband to the bedroom for the rest of the day hadn't exactly been the highlight of Padmé's life.

But by now the four of them had cobbled together enough money to rent an apartment of their own, and Anakin and Padmé had been living in peaceful solitude for six months, finally allowed to enjoy the newlywed phase in private. That is, until Padmé was woken one Saturday morning by loud barking coming from the hallway.

Frowning in confusion, she climbed out of bed and shuffled out of the room and towards the front door, where she saw Anakin frantically trying to shush a small white dog with a blue collar. "Come on, please, please, be quiet, buddy, you're gonna wake up—Padmé," he said suddenly in a falsely cheery voice, straightening up as he saw her approaching. "Morning. Did you sleep well?"

"Ani, what the hell is this?" she said blearily, yawning and rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

"Oh, you know, I was just out for a run." Indeed, he _was_ wearing sweaty workout clothes.

"And decided to steal someone's dog?" Padmé said.

"I didn't _steal_ him," Anakin said, looking utterly offended that she would even suggest such a thing. "He's a stray."

"He has a collar."

"Well, he's lost, then. I mean, look at him, Padmé, he's in pretty bad shape. He's clearly been wandering around on the streets for a long time."

Padmé had to admit that was true; the dog's fur was dirty and matted, and she suspected once it was trimmed it would be easy to see his ribs sticking out. "Doesn't his collar have the owner's phone number or something?" she asked.

Anakin shook his head. "I looked, but all it says is his name, no other information."

Padmé crouched down and tentatively reached for the dog's collar, half-expecting him to bite her. But he didn't—on the contrary, he wagged his tail at her and panted happily. Checking the tag for herself, she saw that Anakin was right. _Artoo_ was written in capital letters, but no phone number or other contact information.

"So how exactly did you find him?" she asked as she stood back up.

"I was out on a run, my usual route," Anakin began, "and then he suddenly ran up to me out of someone's backyard. I think he was trying to play with me, he was wagging his tail all excited. I grabbed him by the collar and took him up to the house and rang the bell and asked if he was their dog, but they said he wasn't and they were also pretty sure he didn't belong to any of the neighbors because they'd never seen him before. So I decided to take him home with me."

"Why?"

"I couldn't just leave him wandering around by himself, he'd get hit by a car!"

"Well, yeah, but why didn't you just take him to an animal shelter?" Padmé asked. "I'm sure they could've tracked down the owners better than we can."

"Oh. I…uh, I didn't think of that," Anakin mumbled. "I just thought we could keep him here for a little while and hang up fliers around town with a picture of him and our phone number so that the owner can call us to come get him."

Padmé sighed; her husband had a big heart, but he also tended to make rash decisions without thinking things through. Hence they'd ended up with four recent college graduates underfoot for a year whilst they were trying to plan a wedding (though Rex had ended up being surprisingly helpful with wedding plans, she had to admit). "Anakin, we don't know the first thing about taking care of dogs," she said. "How are we going to look after him until the owners come for him? It could take weeks! Come on, let's just load him up in the car and bring him to the local shelter."

"What? Noooo," Anakin protested. "He'll be lonely at a shelter!"

"There's tons of other animals and humans there, I'm sure he'll be just fine."

"But he wants to stay with us, look how happy he is. Look at his little tail wagging, Padmé. Look at it."

Even a heartless monster would've been unable to resist the two matching pairs of pleading puppydog eyes Padmé was currently faced with. She heaved another loud sigh, feeling her heart melt despite herself. "Fine," she said. "We'll keep him until we can track down his owners. But if it takes more than three weeks, we're taking him to the shelter."

Anakin beamed and pecked her on the lips before crouching down to Artoo's level. "Listen to that, buddy! You get to stay!" he exclaimed.

"For three weeks max," Padmé said, though her heart melted a little bit more at the joyous laugh Anakin let out when Artoo lunged at him and licked his face, tail still going a hundred miles an hour.

Anakin went to shower, and Padmé tried to come up with a game plan but was distracted when Artoo hopped up onto the couch beside her. "Oh, no," she said sternly. "You're not getting on the furniture. Down. Off. Bad dog."

But Artoo just rested his chin on her lap and gazed innocently up at her, and Padmé was pretty sure her heart was just a giant puddle at this point, so she gave up and started making a to-do list on her phone. "Aww, you guys are bonding," Anakin said in delight when he returned from the shower.

"No, this stubborn dog just refused to get off the couch no matter how hard I tried," Padmé said dramatically. "And don't go getting attached, we're going to be giving him back to his real owners within a few days."

Anakin headed out soon after to take Artoo to the vet for a checkup to make sure he wasn't sick or injured and Padmé worked on making the fliers while they were gone, though she couldn't start printing them out yet because she'd forgotten to take a picture of Artoo before they'd left. After several hours in which they hadn't returned, she started getting concerned. "Where are you? What's taking so long?" she asked once Anakin picked up his phone. "Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. The vet said he's a little malnourished but otherwise no health problems," Anakin replied. "We just stopped to do some other errands, that's all. We'll be home soon."

Padmé rolled her eyes at his use of "we," as if the dog was their child or something.

"Some other errands" turned out to be a dozen bags of dog supplies, plus a haircut. "I figured the owners would have an easier time recognizing him on the fliers if he was all cleaned up," Anakin explained when Padmé raised her eyebrows at Artoo's sudden cleanliness. Dog haircuts weren't cheap, apparently, but at least he wasn't going to be getting dirt and grime all over her furniture anymore. The couch was already a little muddy.

"Seriously?" Padmé said when Anakin started unpacking the shopping bags. "All you needed was a couple bags of food, not all this."

"I wanted him to feel at home," Anakin insisted, dumping a huge pile of toys onto the counter and pulling a dog bed out of another bag.

Just then, Padmé's phone rang. "Hello?" she said.

It was Obi-Wan. "I was wondering if you and Anakin were around for dinner tonight," he said. "I think he mentioned a few days ago that you were free."

Padmé made a face and surveyed the chaos that was their kitchen. "I'd love to, but I don't think we can make it," she said. "We're kind of in the middle of a dog crisis right now."

"Dog crisis?"

"Anakin found a stray this morning and, long story short, we're keeping it until we can get ahold of the owners."

"Classic Anakin," Obi-Wan said, sounding amused. "Good luck with everything. And let me know if you need any help, though I have to admit I don't know much about dogs myself."

"Yeah, join the club," Padmé muttered. "I'm sorry about dinner. Next weekend?"

"Sounds perfect."

The rest of the evening went relatively smoothly. Artoo seemed to be housetrained, to Padmé's relief, and he gobbled up his food and spent several hours playing happily with Anakin while Padmé pretended not to pay attention. Then he curled up in his new dog bed and fell asleep, leaving Padmé and Anakin to snuggle on the couch in front of the TV for a couple hours before heading to bed themselves.

But before Padmé could drift off, Artoo started howling outside their door. Groaning, she rolled over and covered her ears with the pillow, which wasn't very effective. She felt Anakin move beside her and grabbed his arm. "Where are you going?" she said.

"I want to check on him and make sure he's okay," he whispered.

"Ani, he's fine. He'll settle down and go back to sleep soon."

"He's lonely. He misses us," Anakin said. "I'm just going to go reassure him that we're still here."

"For God's sake, Anakin, he's a dog, not a baby."

But her protests fell on deaf ears, and Anakin got out of bed anyway and tiptoed out the door. "Hey, Artoo, it's okay, I'm here," he soothed him, and then his voice faded as he led Artoo back down the hall and into the living room. Padmé rolled her eyes unseen by anyone, but at least Anakin's presence had gotten Artoo to quiet down, so she was able to fall asleep soon afterwards.

Padmé woke up the next morning to an empty space beside her. She squinted at the clock—it was still early, so she had no idea what could've prompted Anakin to be up and about already unless he'd decided to go on a run again, but he usually took Sunday off and slept late. Upon leaving the bedroom and entering the living room, she received an explanation: Anakin was sound asleep on the couch, his legs too long for it and dangling over the armrest, and Artoo was curled up on top of his chest, also asleep.

Padmé shook her head in fond exasperation, and she may or may not have pulled out her phone to take a picture of the adorable scene. Not that she'd ever admit to doing so.

* * *

Three weeks passed, and they didn't receive any calls from Artoo's owners or anyone else who recognized his picture on the fliers. Padmé halfheartedly attempted to bring up taking him to the shelter after the three-week deadline, but Anakin looked so dejected at the prospect that she couldn't bring herself to finish her sentence.

After two months, there was still no sign of the owners. Anakin was starting to suspect they'd dumped Artoo on purpose and moved away. Padmé was starting to suspect that Artoo was going to become a permanent addition to their household.

But as the weeks continued flying by, she found she minded the idea less and less. Anakin and Artoo clearly adored each other, and Padmé always felt all warm and fuzzy inside when Anakin returned home from work and Artoo ran to greet him, tail wagging and throwing himself into his open arms. Padmé herself always got enthusiastic greetings after work too, though she generally tried to discourage Artoo from slobbering all over her face, something which Anakin had no qualms about. And it _was_ nice to have some company whenever Anakin was out somewhere and she was alone in the house.

"Hey, who's that at the door?" she heard Anakin saying when she got home from running errands one Saturday after they'd had Artoo for four months. The two of them appeared in the front hall a second later. "Look, Mommy's home!" Anakin told Artoo, who was already bounding towards Padmé.

"I'm not the dog's mother," Padmé said for the dozenth time, though nevertheless she knelt down to pet and coo at Artoo. "Who's a good boy? Who's a good boy, Artoo? You are! You're a good boy!"

Artoo wagged his tail even harder and started licking her face, and Padmé just laughed and continued petting him.

"So, I stopped into the shelter on my way back from the store," she said once all the groceries were put away and they were sitting in the living room. "They said that since we've been making every effort to track down Artoo's owners—" In addition to their fliers, they'd been asking all over their town and the surrounding ones, filed a found dog report with their local animal control, and checked the lost dog postings at all the shelters nearby with no luck "—and it's been four months and no one's come forward, we should bring him to them or find another home for him, or we can legally keep him if we want."

Anakin's breath caught in his throat. "We—we can keep him?" he repeated.

"Yes, but we're under no obligation to do so if we don't want to," Padmé said.

"I want to," Anakin said at once. "I want to keep him, Padmé, please? He's part of our family now. He loves us, and we both love him, and we're a good home for him and I know it would upset him if we gave him away after we've had him so long. He's already been through some hard times before we found him. Please?"

Padmé looked down at Artoo nestled cozily between them on the couch, dozing off and looking as happy as a clam, and she felt a smile growing on her face. "I want to keep him too," she said. "You're right. He's part of our family."

Overjoyed, Anakin leaned over and kissed her. This woke up Artoo, who was now being squished, and he sat up and started licking their faces in an attempt to join in on the kiss. Then Anakin and Padmé were laughing too hard to kiss, and they turned their attention to Artoo instead. "Did you hear that? We're keeping you!" Anakin said, beaming at him. "We're keeping you!"

Artoo barked excitedly, as if he could understand what he was saying and was just as thrilled as they were.

"So," Anakin said several minutes later once they'd all settled down again, "speaking of our family…I was thinking, we're pretty great dog parents."

"Yes," Padmé said slowly.

"We're pretty great dog parents, so maybe we'd be great human parents too," he finished, biting his lip and looking hopefully at her.

Padmé's heart was racing with excitement, but even so she decided to play it cool to tease him a little bit. "I don't know, I'd hate to make Artoo jealous," she said casually. "He might think we're replacing him."

"Or he might be psyched to have a tiny new human to play with," Anakin countered.

"That's true," Padmé mused. At last she allowed a wide smile to break out across her face. "Well, I'd hate to disappoint his hopes of having a new playmate."

And Artoo was temporarily forgotten altogether as Anakin picked her up, carried her into the bedroom, and firmly shut the door to keep out the nosy dog.

Initially, Artoo was very confused when his humans left the house one night a year later and returned the next morning with not one, but two tiny new humans. But as Anakin had predicted, he quickly adopted the newcomers as his humans as well, and he loved them so much that he didn't even mind whenever they pulled his tail or stole his toys. Though he didn't understand why his big humans always scolded him for growling at strangers who approached the little ones, he was only trying to protect them.

* * *

 **Sorry for taking a lil detour with the ending but I just Had to include the mental image of Dog Artoo interacting with baby Luke and Leia :')**


End file.
